Life-Impacting Friendships

So we are in a series called Extraordinary Relationships, not ordinary, or not just getting by, or not just a little better, we're talking about Extraordinary Relationships, because God desires Extraordinary Relationships. God wants the very best for you, the best for our friendships, our marriages, our kids, our family units, our communities. He wants the very best, and He's laid some stuff out for us so that we can have the very best. And we've been walking through this, and I'm excited about next week. We're going to have Michael Simone with us to talk about marriage and picking your future mate for you singles people too.

So I told him I wanted to include both. He's a psychologist, he does a lot of counseling and stuff, a lot of marriage counseling, and he's really good at this. So I really wanted him to come in and be a part of this series and share his thoughts on that. Been married for a long time and founder of Spring Branch Community Church, and also he's doing a lot of missions work now with his organization, Togo Network. Just an amazing man of God.

We're just privileged to have him as a part of, kind of an outside part of our family, you know. He is a part of our family, and we just love him so much. But he's going to come in next week and talk about that. But the first week we started about the heart. We started with the heart.

Because we can't get any of this right unless we get our hearts right first, right? Our hearts are in a different place. And that's why the scripture says, the theme scripture says, don't become so well adjusted to the culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Is that what we do? We become so involved.

Some of you are super callous to what you once thought was awful. You know, like this is ungodly, and now you're like in a place where it doesn't... Maybe you've tried to rationalize, or maybe you're a little softer on some things. And some of those are important. You know, you need to kind of see where other people are coming from.

But sometimes we get so, so caught up in the culture that we forget what God wants us to fix our attention on, right? And that's why it says, instead, fix your attention on God. You will be changed from where? The inside out. It doesn't start with the outside in.

If you want to do the outside, try all you can. You'll never be fixed, okay? You'll be working and working and working to get to heaven. You're going to build your ladder to heaven. You're going to try to create your stairway to heaven, and it's never going to get there, right?

It starts with the inside. We need to align our hearts and get our hearts right. And you can go to week one and listen to that message. We talk all about that. And readily recognize what He wants for you and quickly respond to it.

So God's got some things He wants for you, and He's asking you to do, and it's right there in the Bible. It's right there in Scripture, and it's really good for you. You just have to listen to it and obey it because of this reason. Unlike the Bible, Culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, right? That's what it does.

It wants to pull you back down, wants to bring you back into a place you don't want to be, man, I'm back here again. Why am I going in circles? Why is it so hard? Because you're allowing culture to determine your value system. You're allowing culture to determine where your family goes, and your marriage goes, and your relationships go, and all those things go.

But instead, God brings the best out of you. God wants the best for you. It develops well-formed maturity in you. So, we're looking at this series. Last week, we talked about conflict, which was a really good one.

You know, you need to go back and listen to that. And I've had some of you actually tell me this week, I used that thing last week on conflict, and it worked! Wow! Like, it really worked! And so, some of you are getting this, okay?

Some of you aren't, but that's okay. You can go back and listen to that message, pull some things out of it, and try it next time you get in a conflict with your family. Your spouse, or your co-worker, or your friend, or whoever it is. But this week, I want to talk about something I think is really, really significantly important. And I think it's overlooked more than anything else.

Let's talk about our friends. Let's talk about our friends for a minute. Who are our friends? Because friendships are impactful in both a positive and a negative way, okay? Who you're friends with determines where you go.

I can look at your friends, the people that you surround yourself with, and I can determine immediately, probably, who you're going to be, and where you're going to go, and how you're going to act. Because friends are super important. And it can determine your marriages, how your marriages go, or who you're going to marry. Or it can determine where your kids go, your children, your grandchildren. It goes through generations.

It starts with you, and it can matriculate through generations. It can go down into generation after generation after generation. And we want life-giving relationships. We want life-giving friendships. Generation-impacting friendships is what we're looking at today.

Because it's a spiritual matter. It's not just a physical thing. It's not just somebody you hang out with. There are spiritual components to that. So let's begin with the Old Testament.

And I heard this with this particular scripture, going back to Genesis and God creating the earth and all that. I heard, this is kind of a stolen idea from this scripture. I heard this probably about six or seven years ago, and I was like, wow, I've never seen it from this standpoint before. Me and some other pastors, we were at a pastor conference, and a pastor we looked up to shared this message based on, or at least the scripture, not the message necessarily, but the scripture. And we all looked at each other and said, I'm stealing that, I'm stealing that.

Yeah, that's good. It was just so impactful. And it goes back to Genesis 1 with verse 11, and if you have your Bible apps, open those Bible.com. You can pull up our notes.

If you know how to get there, pop that up on screen real quick. Lydia, do we have the Bible app connection piece there? And you can go to the Bible app or if you've got your Bible, your physical Bible, that's great too, okay? So just go to the events section in the Bible app and you'll see Salt Church live. Is it not working?

Okay. Sometimes the dates change on it. So, okay. Today, take physical notes, okay? Hey, hey, do your homework, right?

Write something down for a change, okay? Or go back to the series of following the notes. We'll make sure the notes are live. Sometimes the date changes on us. There's some kinks in the software and the date will like push a week ahead or something like that.

That might be why it's not live today. Okay. But anyway, let's go on and look at this. And as you know, in the beginning, God created the heavens. He created these inanimate objects like the sun, the moon.

It is there. It is there. Okay, it is there. Okay, okay. It's titled wrong.

Okay, sorry. Okay. Oh man, we got to work on that. Wow. Okay.

So, God created... I'll get started in a minute. Okay. All right. Okay.

God created the heavens and he created all these objects like the sun and the moon and the stars and all these things, you know, before he created living things. We see that in the first part. And then he created living things. He created living things. And here's what it said.

It says, Then God said, Let the land produce vegetation, seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seeds in it. So, that's important. Seed-bearing plants according to their various kinds. So, he created things. So, he created things in order to produce those things of their various kinds.

So, there's seeds happening here. So, he's created things to produce its own kind. And he goes on to say, And it was so, the land produced vegetation, plants bearing seeds according to their kind, and trees bearing fruits with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw it was good. So, he kind of reiterates that.

It gets a little more. That's how Hebrew works. You know, the original language. They kind of repeat themselves over and over again to make sure you got it. Because we take a lot of words out of one word in Hebrew.

So, that's why you're seeing a little bit of reiteration there. But it's important to see that these plants bear their own kind. In fact, the tree in your backyard is a result of the tree that God created in the beginning. Isn't that cool to think about that? That throughout the forests and the trees and the flowers, they produce themselves.

They pass down through generation, through generation, through thousands, whether you're an old earth or new earth person, millions or thousands of years, you know. You can go back to the beginning, and the very thing that God created, He created with a process of seeding the next thing that came across generation after generation after generation. He put potential inside something in order to produce something else, to multiply something else in this earth. It's a beautiful thing. He's omnipotent, which means all potential.

He has all the potential, and He takes all that potential, He takes some of that potential and puts it into the things in this earth. God created things to reproduce themselves, various kinds, you know. So trees, oak trees produce oak trees, pine trees produce pine trees, certain flowers produce certain flowers. You know, it goes on and on and on, and they continue to produce things. And this was God's plan all along.

He designed living creatures, living things to produce other things. But in order for something to reproduce, and this is where it really got me, right here. In order for something to reproduce or multiply, it requires intimacy. It always requires intimacy. Everything that becomes intimate reproduces.

So plants reproduce because they pollinate each other, right? Animals reproduce because they become intimate in some way, shape, or form with each other, right? So everything that reproduces is intimacy. It starts with intimacy, a closeness, a closeness. Then Genesis says this, Genesis 1, 26.

It says, then God said, let us make man. And this is the first time He says this. He doesn't say this with any other creature. He says this about us, human beings. He says this, let us make man in our image.

Let us make man like us. Let's put something, a piece of us inside man, in our likeness. In our likeness. So He took a piece of Himself and put it in us. He put one third of Him, the spirit man, is what connects with God and connects with each other.

Did you know that? There's a spiritual element. There's a spiritual thing. When He breathed the very breath of life in us, the Bible says He breathed life. He didn't breath life into animals.

He didn't breath life into plants. He spoke everything else into existence. But He got down on His hands and knees and went into the ground, formed us, and breathed into us. That's special. There's something powerful about that.

There's something intimate about that. He breathed into us. So one third of us is the spirit of God. Did you know that? We're a triune nature, if you've heard that term before, body, soul, and spirit.

We're bodies physically, the way we look, the way we touch, the way we walk around, and then We're souls in that, our personalities, and who we are, and how we think, and things like that, but there's something even deeper, and it's the Spirit of God, the desire to connect with God, to experience God's glory on this earth, it's a part of us, it's innately a part of us, because God said, I'm going to make these people that I'm creating like me. So he put his Spirit in us, and then he said this, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. And God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them, and God blessed them, he wanted to bless them, and he said to them, And this is the very first time that we see God actually say, tell human beings to do something. He says this, Be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it.

Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves on the ground. This is the first mention of anything like this, which makes it the most important thing in Scripture, in that particular part of Scripture. Now there's this thing in biblical interpretation, the law first mentioned, any time you see that thing spoken for the first time, it's important, take note of it. Because it's really important. He asked mankind to subdue the earth, to rule over the earth.

Godly people would rule over the earth. Godly seed, he was asking Godly seed for us to multiply. This wasn't just physical, this was spiritual more than anything. He wanted his glory through people to multiply across the earth. He put together a law of multiplication through people, through his seed, through his spirit, to rule over the earth.

To be image bearers, to inhabit the earth, to inhabit his earth with his glory. I don't know why he did it that way, but he chose to do it that way. And what an honor it is that we are spiritual. And we carry his nature, we carry his attitude, we carry his temperament, and it transfers through generations. God's kingdom.

God establishes his kingdom through his people, through the people he seeded with his spirit. And he asks us to go and subdue the earth. And relationships are not an accident. There's a purpose behind relationships. God had purpose in relationships.

There's reasons God wants relationships to be good because intimacy reproduces. And with our friendships, they're spiritual things. It affects everything. Our relationships, our friendships. His spiritual DNA reproduces through the people that we're with.

The people that we do life with. The people that we marry. Through our kids. Through all of them. And practically you see this in families, right?

I mean... You can just look at a family and watch how they raise their kids and they end up, that's why I've got some of my dad's personality and I've got some of my mom's personality. My dad's like the kind, sweet, you know, pastor guy, but my mom, she's kind of like a little bit of a bulldozer, you know, she's going to tell you like it is, right? My dad's a little more passive, my mom's a little more, so I've got a little bit of both of those things in me, you know, so my mom's a sweet woman too, okay? She's a little.

Yeah, but she knows it, she knows it, she sees, she sees the Norton side come out of me because, you know, we have certain traits like jobs, you know, your kids tend to go the direction you go in job, they like sports teams that you like, they act the way you act, their temperament's a lot like you, it's a transfer, there's some kind of practical transfer that takes place and he wanted, God was so desperate to bring his blessing into this earth that he took a chance and said, you know what, I'm going to allow my spiritual seed, the blessing, the conduit of blessing to flow through the families of this earth, the people of this earth, so he wanted us to be fruitful, multiply his glory on this earth, subdue the earth, make it heaven on earth, that's what he wanted for us. But Satan wants to get into our relationships for this particular reason. That's why relationships are so important. That's why friendships and marriages and the way you spend time with your kids and all these, that's why they're so important because he wants to stop, Satan wants to stop the transfer. Satan wants to stop the glory of God from coming into the earth through us, through multiplication.

He's going to multiply it another way. He desires to multiply it another way. That transfer, that generational transfer, and unfortunately, it's happened. You know, bad things, good things are transferred, bad things can be transferred too. We call them generational curses.

Now, some of you are like, curse, that word, is that like voodoo or something? No, no, no, that's not how we see it biblically. But there is a spiritual component that works through your generation. Strongholds and temperaments and anger and bitterness and addictions and all those things work through generations. They're generational curses.

That's why the Bible says the sins of the father will be passed down through the fourth generation because he cared about your kids. He cared about the generations later. And he says, you know, don't allow this motion. He knew how hard it was to get out of those things if we got into them because he set something in motion. He set a spiritual transfer in motion.

This was his plan all along to set this transfer, this process in place. And sins, unfortunately, as good blessings are passed down, sins are passed down through generations as well, which is why the good news is Jesus came. We have hope because Jesus came to reset that transfer. To break those generational curses, to reset it, that if we believe in Jesus, we would have everlasting life, and we could stop those strongholds, we could stop those things that Satan has put on our families and put on our relationships, and we can walk forward in the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, and that our generations, and our grandkids, and our kids, and all that are before us, our futures, and future generations, they can be changed. The script can be flipped.

The story can be changed because of Jesus Christ. He is the answer, and we have Him that is the hope of all this. He brought the garden back. He brought it back to Genesis. That's the beauty of Jesus, the redemption, the hope of Jesus Christ, and that's why God, see, the reason why God hates divorce is because it really hurts you, and it hurts your children, and it hurts your children's children, and He doesn't want that for us.

He wants to restore kids back to their fathers. He wants to restore families. He wants to restore all those things, and we go down to Malachi, and so we see it in Genesis, and then the very end of the Old Testament, we look at the scripture of Malachi. Now, Malachi is a really hard book in the Bible because it's four chapters, and it deals with just, you're doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong, and then it ends, and then there's a dry period up until Jesus Christ. I mean, like, God just kind of takes His presence off of people, kind of a passive type of judgment on the people, and it's a really hard scripture, or a really hard chapter, and the scripture here in Malachi, He deals with, I think, one thing that's really important, and we'll see this, we'll see how this connects in a second.

It says, and this is the second thing you do. Now, let me just give you some context here. The people were crying out to God and say, I'm crying to you, why are you not listening? Where are you? I don't know where you're at, where you are at, we're praying, you're not listening to us, and here's God's answer.

This is how God, God's answering the priests in one chapter, and another place in the other chapter, and this one, He's particularly looking at a relationship, the most critical relationship that we can have, and it says, and this is the second thing you do. You cover the altar of the Lord with tears and weeping and crying because you're praying, oh God, oh God, oh God, right? He does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with goodwill from your hands. Yet you say, for what reason? Because the Lord has been witnessed, the Lord has been watching between you and the most critical relationship you can have, the wife of your youth.

The most critical of all the relationships, no wonder we can't get any relationship, we can't even get the most important relationship outside of God. We can't even get this relationship right, with whom you have dealt treacherously. That's a hard word right there. Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant, but did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one?

Here it is. God seeks godly offspring. He He seeks godly generations, godly offspring. He wants you to seed his glory. And you're messing up, you're hurting your kids.

You're hurting your grandkids. You're messing up, he's, you're creating, God's like, you're creating a chain that's going to be hard to get out of if you don't change your way. And then he says this, therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the life of the youth. Now let me just say this, those are hard scriptures, right? I mean, they're not like, feel good, no condemnation, all that kind of stuff, you know.

But we've all messed up. We've all messed up in our relationships, okay? We can begin to do it right today. Today's the day you can make a decision. Let's, let's get this right, guys.

Let's do it God's way because God doesn't want the worst for us, he wants the best for us. He's not some kind of cosmic killjoy trying to mess up our lives. He's just asking us to follow his way and he will bring about the best. And the last thing that Jesus says, and this is really, really cool, not only, you see this transfer take place, even Jesus' commission. He says, go and be fruitful and multiply, but in a different way.

He says, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and teaching them all that I've done. Go and make Christians. Go out and preach the gospel to everybody that I have come to set the generational curse, to break the generational curse. I have come so that you can find life in Jesus Christ. You can find life in the Spirit.

That the Spirit, I don't know about you guys, but I'm excited about this. You guys are dead this morning. Come on, come on. That he can break this. I'll just preach to myself.

That's fine. I'm just excited today. Let, let the godly seed transfer to the people in our lives. So he came back to reset these things. Go and make disciples of all nations.

Go and make people who follow me of all nations because I have come. This multiplication process is set in place once again by Jesus Christ and through the church. And we are the hope of the world through Jesus Christ. He has chosen us, the church, to be the hope of the world. The salt of the earth.

Well, salt always makes a difference and a little bit of salt goes a long way. You make a difference. And we all can make decisions and make differences. So what are, so back to, back to my point. I've got three things real quick.

Relationships are spiritual. They're not just people you hang around with and can go home and just, you know, am I okay? They're spiritual. I had somebody not long ago saying, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm just, I'm just hanging out with Christians from now on and da-da-da-da because I've, I've, I've had these other people and they just, just infected me. I said, good, good for you.

You should be doing that. We should because they're spiritual. They're, they're, they're, they're actually, stuff goes with you when you're around the people that you hang out with. You don't realize it but it's affecting you internally. Not externally necessarily.

The external is, is what, what shows on the end. But internally there's things sticking to you when you're around the wrong people, when you're hanging out with the wrong people. Relationships are spiritual and, and, and Jesus leaves us with that. He starts the story with relationships are spiritual. So go out and make spiritual relationships.

And if you failed, that's okay. Jesus gives us a do-over. Isn't that cool? He gives us a do-over. Every bad transference can be fixed.

But we need to take our relationships seriously. Our co-workers, our friends, even our most intimate friends. You've got to think about those things. I know those are hard things to think about. Your church relationships even.

Who are we surrounding ourselves? Because who we surround ourselves, things stick to us. It sends us to where we want to go. Because intimacy reproduces. Spiritual things reproduce.

And it reproduces in the inside. The second thing is relationships have lasting impact. They can have lasting impact for good or bad. Wrong relationships reproduce just like anything else. And your whole life is shaped by the people you choose to be around.

Your life is defined by the people you're around. So my question is, who are you hanging out with? Right? Think about that. Process that.

And God knew this, but he took the risk because he was so adamant. He wanted so badly for his blessing to flow. His seed to flow. But he knew that there would be the opportunity for evil to step in and take its place. So show me your friends and I'll show you where you're going.

I'll show you your future. It's real easy to identify where somebody's going by the friends they hang out with. But if we have the right friends in our lives, we got a good future ahead of us. People that want to help us heal, want to help us grow, want to see the best for us. Those are good friends, spiritual friends that want to help us grow closer to Christ.

I mean, for example, I am who I am today because I had good seed in my life. My great-grandfather was a godly man, loved the Lord, led the choir in his church, and passed that godly seed down to my grandmother, who my grandmother and grandfather, who served children for years and years in orphanages, passed that seed down to my father and my uncle and my aunts, and all of them involved in ministry. My father was a pastor. My uncle was a children's pastor. And they've all been pastors in some way.

My aunt married a pastor, and they're pastoring. And my dad's pastoring in North Carolina. And just all these pastors came out of there, which in turn, God blessed me and found favor on me. And now I'm a pastor. And now I'm transferring that seed to my kids.

Those values, those godly values, the priorities in my life, the importance of those priorities in their life. And then relationship choices are critical. Relationship choices are critical. Choose your people carefully, guys. I'm saying this.

I say this. People think I'm just so hard on these things, but I know. I mean, this is the most overlooked thing. Are we choosing our relationships carefully? For instance, you want to lose weight?

Then you're not going to surround yourself with junk food. Right? You're going to put yourself in the gym. You've got to choose your relationships carefully. If you want change, you can't do it alone.

Proverbs 27 says it like this, A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses to be around. I love that version of scripture. Who are you choosing? If we could hold off the music just for a second. They're trying to hurry me up.

I promise you I won't be long. Let me get to my application and you can begin. Because I feel like I'm going to be rushing here. So here's my three application points real quick. It won't take me long here.

First of all, nurture the important relationships. Nurture the important relationships. What are the most important relationships in your life? First of all, it's God. God is the most important relationship that you could ever have.

And God's going to do a lot of good things in this service. People come in here trying to get their spiritual medicine, you know. They talk about it being their spiritual medicine, but they barely make it through the week and they're living on life support before they get to church on the next Sunday. And that's not how God wants you to live. He wants you to live every day in Jesus.

He wants you to be fed by Him. He wants you to live out Him. You need to be walking in Him every day. Jesus, Jesus has given me life. And that's what you need.

And you know how you do that? By living in His Word. Walking with the people around you that love the Lord. Just put on some spiritual music. Put on some Christian music and just allow God to feed you.

Or you'll be deluded by the end of the week and you'll be barely making it. You don't want to live like that. I mean, I love that you want it. This is just the cream on top. It's church, man.

We get excited and we celebrate and we get on fire and we leave this place and we're going to change the world, right? But during the week, that's the most important moments. What are you doing between Sundays? What are you doing between Sundays? Nurture those important relationships.

God first and then your family. Your kids. Make sure your kids are a priority in your life, okay? Don't get so involved in your job and everything else and all that's going on. I'm too busy.

Look, you're the closest to Jesus that your kids will ever see, okay, at that age. And if you're living for Jesus, you want to install those priorities in their lives. Okay? Like, God is first. My kids know that I love Jesus more than I love them.

I love them to death, but I love Jesus more. That's right. And my little girl, she makes sure she keeps me accountable when I don't pray for dinner. If I sit down and I eat too quick, oh, Daddy, we need to pray. You need to stop.

We need to pray. It just makes me proud to have that happen, you know, like her making that a priority in our lives. We have a small amount of time to really input and pass down values, godly values into our kids. So make your kids a priority. And then make your marriage.

I'm not going to talk a lot about marriage because we're going to say that for next week. You need to be here. Bring your spouse if she's not with you, he's not with you. Bring some people that are going through some marriage difficulties with you. Maybe this is the...

They're their last hope, and you've got to get them to church next week because we're going to talk about that, but marriage, that's your number one priority right there. Outside of God, I didn't pick my kids, I picked my wife. I chose her, and we have to work on this relationship because this is going to set everything in motion. If we're on the same page, we need to really work on our marriages. Marriages are in trouble, and we need to work on those.

It says, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other. Number two, sever those harmful relationships. Leon, don't go there.

Yes, I have to go there because some of those relationships are keeping you back. your co-workers or your friends, and if they've got those people that are inappropriate jokes, and you're laughing along with those jokes, maybe you need to distance yourself from those people. Some people you have to be around, but you don't have to be their best friends, okay? And some of those ones you just have to cut off because it reproduces. Why?

Because relationships are spiritual. If they walk with the Lord or they don't walk with the Lord, they're attaching to you somehow. And maybe you need to distance yourself. Some of you single girls, maybe you have a guy who's trying to talk you into doing some things you don't want to do. You're in a dating relationship, and you need to cut him off.

Guys, you need to do the same thing. Girls aren't exempt. If they're trying to get you to do things that you don't need to be doing, cut them off. Sever those relationships. You don't need those relationships in your life.

God's got bigger plans, better plans, a great marriage for you. And you need to work on those relationships. Get away from them. I'm not going to golf with those guys anymore. I'm not going to hunt with those guys anymore.

I'm not going to go there with those girls anymore. I'm not going to go to those places. I'm going to get away from those places. I'm not going to surf with those guys anymore if they're going to act like that, right? I mean, we're going to get away from whatever it is.

I'm not going to play sports. I'm not going to do those hobbies. I'm not going to hang out with those people anymore because I'm just cutting. I'm distancing myself because I want God's best for my life. I know He has the best in mind.

1 Corinthians 15.33 says it like this. Do not be misled. Bad company corrupts good character. That's pretty simple and simple.

Hey, Proverbs 13.20. He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm. If you hang around fools, you become a fool, okay? I pity the fool.

Some of you are like, what in the world? Who's been dating myself? Mr. T, right? I pity the fool who hangs around fools.

And the Bible's like this everywhere. Like lazy. Like don't hang around lazy people. 2 Thessalonians 3. Proverbs 12.

Don't hang around angry people. Proverbs 22. Proverbs 16. Don't hang around immoral people. 2 Corinthians 5.

Ephesians 5. 3. 1 Corinthians 15. Don't hang around greedy people. Ecclesiastes 5.

10, Proverbs 23 and 15. Don't hang around unbelieving people. 2 Corinthians 6.14-17, Psalm 53.1, Psalm 1.

1, just all this in the Bible. It goes on and on and on. I could just spout out scriptures all day about the things that God tells us to stay away from. Why? Because relationships are spiritual.

Friendships are spiritual. The people you're around, they connect spiritually. And Proverbs 12 says, a righteous man is cautious in his friendships. 2 Corinthians says, do not be unequally yoked or be yoked together, which in the original language means a common fellowship with unbelievers. It's a really hard thing, right?

But what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? Spiritual. Spiritual ramifications. And I know this is hard for some of you who are new to the faith or have just come back to the faith.

But I'm telling you this, you're going to have to make some decisions. There's going to be some friends that you've been close friends since maybe high school, junior high, elementary school. And they're just not pushing you in the direction you need to go. And you can love them from a distance, but they can't be in your life the way you want them to or you think they should be in your life. And it's going to be better for them if you make these decisions.

Trust me. For example, I had a friend way back. We were best friends. We knew each other from elementary school. And when God got a hold of my life and changed me, I was excited about Jesus.

And I just told him, I can't do those things. I can't go. And he couldn't understand. He's like, you can just do it this night or you can do it this time. Or he would kind of hold it over me.

Well, we're best friends. And you've got to go. And it's like, but I can't anymore, man. I love Jesus now and I want to live for Jesus. I want to do the things of God.

I can't do those things anymore. I love you, brother, but I just can't. I can't be involved in that anymore. And, you know, it was hard at the time, but eventually something happened. He saw the way I was living.

He saw the way I love Jesus. He saw what was happening in my life. And he ended up giving his life to Jesus. And he's living for the Lord today, serving in his church and doing all kinds of things in his church. I never thought he would be doing the things he was doing.

I mean, it was just amazing to see that and the snowball effect and all of his family was getting saved and everybody around, friends were getting saved. Look, it's important that you make those decisions. You're not leaving them hanging. You love them anyway. The reason you sever those relationships is because you love them and you want God to have the best for them.

And I know it's hard. It's hard. This is probably the hardest part. But you're not going to be able to hang around. People who are pulling you down.

If you're going to break that addiction, you can't hang around people with those addictions. If you have that stronghold in your life, you can't be hanging around people that keep you in that stronghold. You've got to be around people who help you heal, who help you grow, who get you closer to Jesus Christ. And it's important. And then finally, you need to initiate meaningful relationships.

And I'll end on this point. You need to initiate meaningful relationships, okay? Because you may be avoiding the very relationships you really need. How many times have you pushed to the side the very thing that you need to do? Like, attend a small group.

Let's just a salt group, for instance. How many times have you made excuses? I'm too busy. There's a lot going on. You may be avoiding the very people that you really need in your life.

You may have a best friend in that group that you really need during this season of your life. You really need that person in your life. And you may be avoiding it. And I know it's awkward going to a group. First time I remember when we started our group, it was like nobody really knew each other.

We were just like, oh, okay, yeah. But you start going. It's going to be awkward at first, I'm just going to admit, okay? I know it's weird going to somebody's house and there's these new people and stuff like that. But I guarantee you, just commit.

Commit for a month. Commit for four or five weeks. And just, I promise you, when you start sharing, you start connecting, you start getting closer. And it starts getting more intimate. Because intimacy reproduces.

And there's a spiritual intimacy that takes place that you might need to help you grow. And you start finding those people. You find life in relationships. And you need to initiate those relationships. Because a man of many companions may run to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

There is a friend who sticks closer to the brother. And you may have the best relationship that you'd ever have, you know, in that, in a friendship, in a relationship, in a Christian community. So I'm just challenging you there. And the most important relationship you can have is a relationship with the one friend you want more than anything. And that's where it really starts.

And that's where we get our hearts right once again. That we align our hearts with the one, the one who really wants to be our friend. In fact, it says this, I no longer call you servants. That's what Jesus said. Because my servant does not know his master's business.

Instead, I have called you friends. I have called you friends. Friends. And here's the thesis statement of this message. Relationships, God's way, will break your generational curse.

It will break your generational curse. It will break those strongholds off your life. It will break those addictions off your life. It will break everything. It is available for you.

But it starts with a relationship with Jesus Christ. So, with all heads bowed and all eyes closed, I want to give you an opportunity today. Is there anybody here today, and I want us just to take this moment, just a few seconds and we'll end, but I want to give you an opportunity to receive Jesus as your Savior and King. Is there anybody here today, you've heard this, you feel in your heart, I want to give my life to Jesus today. If you would just gently raise your hand, just say, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready, amen.

I'm ready. Anyone else? Anyone else? Just say, I'm in. I see another hand, I see another hand.

You can lift them up, lift them down. I don't want to embarrass you. I just want to pray for you personally. I see several hands go up, several hands go up. Look, look.

You can put those hands down. Listen. Another hand, another hand over there. Amen, amen. Listen, just pray this with me.

Pray this with me. Just believe in your heart, there's nothing magical about it. You're just confessing to Jesus, hey, look, God, I've done it wrong, but I give my life to you today. Just pray that with me. Father, I believe that you are the Son of God, and that you died on the cross for my sin, for all of my shame, all those strongholds, all those things in my life.

But today, Lord, I completely surrender it to you. Today, I rededicate my life. I give my life for the first time, wherever you are in that hand raise. If you're rededicating your life, just say it. Just say, I rededicate my life, or I give my life to you today, Lord.

Come into my life. Come into my heart. Make me a new creation. In Jesus' name, amen.